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Amazon EBS Volumes

An Amazon EBS volume is a durable, block-level storage device that you can attach
to a single EC2
instance. You can use EBS volumes as primary storage for data that requires frequent
updates,
such as the system drive for an instance or storage for a database application. You
can also use
them for throughput-intensive applications that perform continuous disk scans. EBS
volumes
persist independently from the running life of an EC2 instance.

After a volume is attached to an instance, you can use it like any other physical
hard
drive. EBS volumes are flexible. For current-generation volumes attached to current-generation
instance types, you can dynamically increase size, modify the provisioned IOPS capacity,
and
change volume type on live production volumes.

Benefits of Using EBS Volumes

EBS volumes provide several benefits that are not supported by instance store
volumes.

Data availability

When you create an EBS volume in an Availability Zone, it is automatically replicated
within that zone to prevent data loss due to failure of any single hardware component.
After you create a volume, you can attach it to any EC2 instance in the same Availability
Zone. After you attach a volume, it appears as a native block device similar to a
hard
drive or other physical device. At that point, the instance can interact with the
volume
just as it would with a local drive. The instance can format the EBS volume with a
file
system, such as NTFS, and
then install applications.

An EBS volume can be attached to only one instance at a time, but multiple volumes
can
be attached to a single instance. If you attach multiple volumes to a device that
you have
named, you can stripe data across the volumes for increased I/O and throughput
performance.

An EBS volume and the instance to which it attaches must be in the same Availability
Zone.

An EBS volume is off-instance storage that can persist independently from the life
of
an instance. You continue to pay for the volume usage as long as the data persists.

EBS volumes that are attached to a running instance can automatically detach from
the
instance with their data intact when the instance is terminated if you uncheck the
Delete on Termination checkbox when you configure EBS volumes for
your instance on the EC2 console. The volume can then be reattached to a new instance,
enabling quick recovery. If the checkbox for Delete on Termination is
checked, the volume(s) will delete upon termination of the EC2 instance. If you are
using
an EBS-backed instance, you can stop and restart that instance without affecting the
data
stored in the attached volume. The volume remains attached throughout the stop-start
cycle. This enables you to process and store the data on your volume indefinitely,
only
using the processing and storage resources when required. The data persists on the
volume
until the volume is deleted explicitly. The physical block storage used by deleted
EBS
volumes is overwritten with zeroes before it is allocated to another account. If you
are
dealing with sensitive data, you should consider encrypting your data manually or
storing
the data on a volume protected by Amazon EBS encryption. For more information, see
Amazon EBS Encryption.

By default, the root EBS volume that is created and attached to an instance at launch
is
deleted when that instance is terminated. You can modify this behavior by changing
the
value of the flag DeleteOnTermination to false when you launch
the instance. This modified value causes the volume to persist even after the instance
is
terminated, and enables you to attach the volume to another instance.

By default, additional EBS volumes that are created and attached to an instance at
launch are
not deleted when that instance is terminated. You can modify this behavior by changing
the
value of the flag DeleteOnTermination to true when you launch
the instance. This modified value causes the volumes to be deleted when the instance
is
terminated.

Data encryption

For simplified data encryption, you can create encrypted EBS volumes with the
Amazon EBS encryption feature. All EBS volume types support encryption. You can use
encrypted EBS
volumes to meet a wide range of data-at-rest encryption requirements for regulated/audited
data and applications. Amazon EBS encryption uses 256-bit Advanced Encryption Standard
algorithms
(AES-256) and an Amazon-managed key infrastructure. The encryption occurs on the server
that hosts the EC2 instance, providing encryption of data-in-transit from the EC2
instance
to Amazon EBS storage. For more information, see Amazon EBS Encryption.

Amazon EBS encryption uses AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) master keys when
creating encrypted volumes and
any snapshots created from your encrypted volumes. The first time you create an encrypted
EBS volume in a region, a default master key is created for you automatically. This
key is
used for Amazon EBS encryption unless you select a customer master key (CMK) that
you created
separately using AWS KMS. Creating your own CMK gives you more flexibility, including
the
ability to create, rotate, disable, define access controls, and audit the encryption
keys
used to protect your data. For more information, see the AWS Key Management Service Developer Guide.

Snapshots

Amazon EBS provides the ability to create snapshots (backups) of any EBS volume and
write a
copy of the data in the volume to Amazon S3, where it is stored redundantly in multiple
Availability Zones. The volume does not need to be attached to a running instance
in order
to take a snapshot. As you continue to write data to a volume, you can periodically
create
a snapshot of the volume to use as a baseline for new volumes. These snapshots can
be used
to create multiple new EBS volumes or move volumes across Availability Zones. Snapshots
of
encrypted EBS volumes are automatically encrypted.

When you create a new volume from a snapshot, it's an exact copy of the original
volume at the time the snapshot was taken. EBS volumes that are restored from encrypted
snapshots are automatically encrypted. By optionally specifying a different Availability
Zone, you can use this functionality to create a duplicate volume in that zone. The
snapshots can be shared with specific AWS accounts or made public. When you create
snapshots, you incur charges in Amazon S3 based on the volume's total size. For a
successive
snapshot of the volume, you are only charged for any additional data beyond the volume's
original size.

Snapshots are incremental backups, meaning that only the blocks on the volume that
have changed after your most recent snapshot are saved. If you have a volume with
100 GiB
of data, but only 5 GiB of data have changed since your last snapshot, only the 5
GiB of
modified data is written to Amazon S3. Even though snapshots are saved incrementally,
the
snapshot deletion process is designed so that you need to retain only the most recent
snapshot in order to restore the volume.

To help categorize and manage your volumes and snapshots, you can tag them with
metadata of your choice. For more information, see Tagging Your Amazon EC2 Resources.

Flexibility

EBS volumes support live configuration changes while in production. You can modify
volume type,
volume size, and IOPS capacity without service interruptions.

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